Today we launch the 12th and final nominee for this year’s Mogul in the Making competion — The Million Dollar Pitch edition.

You could sense the excitement in his voice as he spoke about what he believes will become one of the world’s biggest industry booms.

Christopher Haddad, Chief Executive Officer and founder of JamaicaUAV, is keen on providing local and international clients with aerial imagery captured by his very own unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), aircraft which can be flown by pilots at ground control stations or autonomously based on programmed flight plans or automatic systems.

It’s a business venture he started roughly two years ago after spending 22 years in information technology-based job positions and seeing the need to develop a more hands-on technology for individuals in the field of land surveying.

“My father, uncle and brother are land surveyors. From I was a little child I’ve been walking bush with my father and gaining that experience. Essentially, years back I found out that the primary supplier of aerial imagery had passed away,” Haddad told the

Jamaica Observer in an interview on Wednesday.

“The supplier flew planes or helicopters and would hang his hand out the window to take manual photographs that land agencies, survey departments and developers alike would use. And so there was a gap in the industry and that pushed me to return to Canada to speak to some of the world’s leading manufacturers of UAVs,” he continued.

Today, JamaicaUAV provides services that include interpretation and analysis, land volume calculations, terrain contouring, ground control markers, online mapping and geospatial data distribution.

According to Haddad, UAVs are now the go-to technology for instantaneous and effective response by the Government among other major organisations in the event of a disaster. The technology offers immediate data retrieval and analysis while reducing costs and possibly saving lives.

“So I basically looked at the market in terms of the legal infrastructure, not only for privacy but legislation, and also the authorities, and found out that Jamaica was a much better place to do a start-up like this,” he said.

“After explaining to them the overall big picture of the autonomous vehicle industry, that this was going to be one of the world’s biggest industry booms that the planet has ever seen, and when I say that I’m not talking specifically to the aerial autonomous vehicle but I’m talking about ground-based, water-based, under the ground and under the surface of the water autonomous vehicles,” Haddad told the

Caribbean Business Report.

Riding on confidence of his business venture taking off, Haddad returned to Jamaica after realising that the Canadian manufacturers’ products were ‘beta’ and not ready for retail.

“They were overpriced and full of bugs. So what I started to do was build my own UAVs from scratch, including everything from the airframes to flight control systems, antennas to different optics and sensors that would do the data collection from drones or UAVs,” he said.

After almost a year of perfecting the equipment and roughly US$500,000 in investment cost, Haddad was ready to go to market. He sought approval from the Jamaica Civil Aviation Authority (JCAA) and Ministry of National Security as to the do’s and don’ts of UAVs, and in January 2014 opened his doors for business.

So far, JamaicaUAV has served clients in a number of Caribbean locations, including Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. Plans are underway for the construction of an office space in Mexico and other parts of the Americas, in addition to expanding the cloud-based services and online application of JamaicaUAV to facilitate internet-based services to foreign customers.

The CEO is also eyeing listing on the Jamaica Stock Exchange.

“It’s up to the experts on our team to decide the timing. If you are in a business that has the framework of disruptive technology, timing in the marketplace is everything. Everything from the legal framework with the Ministry of Transport is going to be critical, and depending on certain sector’s privacy and fear issues…it’s certainly my wish to be on the Stock Exchange but we are going to wait for the market to speak to us and then we choose the appropriate time,” he said.

JamaicaUAV currently employs eight people in full -time and part-time positions, most of whom are from the University of Technology, Jamaica.

According to Haddad, clients from anywhere in the world can visit the company’s website, open the map and choose the area they want to be processed in specific data sets along with the expected time frame for completion.

“Our website really acts as our cold call combining with our social media. Our phones don’t ring here, everyone goes to the website and we have invested a lot to give us that efficiency,” he said.

“So the client goes in, indicates what data they would like to be collected by the UAV and we then compare that with our no-fly zone database and our internal policies and procedures. For example, if someone wants us to map out an area that is by a heliport or a government building, we take that into account that we need special authorisation before we even go ahead and provide pricing for that,” the 47-year-old continued.

Once the company goes over all the procedures and requirements with the Ministry of National Security and the JCAA, the client is contacted and the contract initiated. An on-site crew is then deployed to conduct inspection of the air space for flying, and once that is cleared the aerial mission would be carried out.

Clients then have the option to have the data transferred over the internet or to come in to the company’s Mona Heights office. The company also operates a data centre in Toronto, Canada.

“Business is doing better than expected. The social media programme that JamaicaUAV has launched has been extremely successful in generating sales; with majority of our sales having come through our website from foreign companies, not only as clients but also as business partners and researchers,” Haddad said.